Green party candidate Jill
Stein explains why she is calling for a recount of votes in three
states, in a Facebook video posted on Thursday. Stein says the goal
is not to overthrow Donald Trump, but to establish a voting system
that is secure and trustworthy. The three states in question are
Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - states where Donald Trump
scored a narrow victory
Jill
Stein requests Wisconsin recount, alleging hackers filed bogus
absentee ballots
The
Green party candidate’s filing cites the sharp increase in absentee
voters rather than the expected focus on electronic voting in the key
state
Amanda Holpuch and
Jon Swaine
Saturday 26 November
2016 01.32 GMT
Jill Stein has
requested a full recount of the presidential election in Wisconsin,
alleging that foreign hackers could have skewed the result by
obtaining the state’s voter database and then filing bogus absentee
ballots.
Stein, the Green
party’s candidate in the presidential election, formally filed for
a recount with Wisconsin authorities shortly before the state’s 5pm
deadline on Friday. She also planned to request recounts in Michigan
and Pennsylvania in the coming days.
The Wisconsin
filing, a copy which was obtained by the Guardian, focuses on a
“significant increase in the number of absentee voters as compared
to the last general election”. It had been thought that it would
instead focus on the scale of Donald Trump’s victories in counties
using only electronic voting.
“This significant
increase could be attributed to a breach of the state’s electronic
voter database,” Stein said in her petition regarding the rise in
the number of absentee ballot filings. Trump won a narrow victory in
the state against Hillary Clinton, surprising pollsters.
The 64-page recount
filing contains an affidavit from J Alex Halderman, the director of
the University of Michigan’s centre for computer security, who is
an expert on election integrity.
“One explanation
for the results of the 2016 presidential election is that
cyberattacks influenced the result,” Halderman writes in his
five-page account.
Halderman said the
hacking theory was “plausible” because other cyberattacks took
place during the election campaign, some voting machines used in the
US are highly vulnerable, and skilled hackers could change the result
and “leave no outwardly visible evidence”.
Stein had raised
more than $5m to fund her recount campaign. The deadlines for
Michigan and Pennsylvania are next week.
Her move to
challenge the counts has split opinions, with some energized by the
thought it has potential to show defeated Democrat Clinton is the
rightful election winner, and those who see Stein’s intervention as
an expensive gimmick to promote the Green party.
Analysis Could Jill
Stein's vote recount change the outcome of the election?
The Green party
candidate has raised funds to file for recounts in Wisconsin,
Michigan and Pennsylvania – but experts are skeptical about the
effort
Read more
The fundraising site
explained that Stein’s campaign “could not guarantee” any of
these states would have a recount. “We can only pledge we will
demand recounts in those states,” the site said.
Amid questions from
some quarters about how the money would be used, the site said: “If
we raise more than what’s needed, the surplus will also go toward
election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.”
Earlier on Friday,
Stein said she was acting due to “compelling evidence of voting
anomalies” and that data analysis had indicated “significant
discrepancies in vote totals” that were released by state
authorities.
“We do not have a
smoking gun,” Stein told CNN. “On the other hand, we have a
system that invites hacking, tampering and malfeasance.”
She said her
campaign had no direct evidence voting systems had been hacked –
something independent experts have also been skeptical about. And
Stein insisted the recount was not meant to block Trump, the surprise
election winner, from becoming president.
Stein has frequently
expressed disappointment in Clinton, and the day before the election
described the Democratic nominee as a “warmonger” and said a
victory for the former secretary of state would be “a mushroom
cloud waiting to happen”. Those comments led to Stein being
condemned by elected members of the Green party in Europe.
“Both of the
candidates were at the highest level of distrust and dislike in our
history and in my view, we as voters deserve a voting system that we
can believe in,” Stein said on Friday. “And to my mind, having a
verified vote is just a first step”.
Stein launched the
campaign amid wider calls to recount or audit election results.
Groups of academics and activists were concerned that foreign hackers
may have interfered with voting systems.
These groups have
called on Clinton to intervene. She is leading in the popular vote by
more than 2.1m votes, a lead which is expected to grow. But Trump won
narrow victories against Clinton in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
earlier this month and was declared the victor in Michigan on
Thursday – sealing his electoral college win.
‘We do not have a
smoking gun,’ Jill Stein has said. ‘On the other hand, we have a
system that invites hacking, tampering and malfeasance.’
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‘We do not have a
smoking gun,’ Jill Stein has said. ‘On the other hand, we have a
system that invites hacking, tampering and malfeasance.’
Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Stein launched her
fundraising effort on Wednesday afternoon and quickly surpassed the
initial $2m fundraising goal by early Thursday morning, prompting her
campaign to raise the goal to $4.5m. After crossing that threshold,
the campaign increased the goal to $7m.
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These funds will be
used to file recount requests and for attorney’s fees, according to
Stein’s campaign manager, David Cobb. He said $1m was needed for
Wisconsin, $600,000 for Michigan and $500,000 for Pennsylvania. The
rest of the money is expected to go to legal fees associated with the
recount.
Adam Parkhomenko,
national field director for the Democratic national convention and a
longtime Clinton aide, said he did not support Stein and “never
will”, but: “I support democracy and the right to count every
vote. And kudos to her for leading on this.”
US elections are so
dominated by Democratic and Republican candidates that third-party
candidates like Stein are more often seen as representing protest
votes than a person with a legitimate shot at the White House. But
these votes can greatly affect the race. For instance, Stein’s
total votes in Michigan and Wisconsin were greater than the gap
between Clinton and Trump, as were votes for the other major
third-party candidate, Libertarian Gary Johnson.
And while it cannot
be assumed that Stein voters would have voted for Clinton if Stein
had not been on the ballot, it is a sensitive issue in such a tight
race.
“I really wish
Jill Stein had not waited until after the election to be so concerned
about a few thousand votes tipping the election to Trump,” said Dan
Pfeiffer, a former senior policy adviser to Barack Obama.
He criticized the
fundraising campaign as a “wasted” effort and said funds could be
better used to help Democrats in smaller, local races.
There was more
energy around third-party candidates in 2016 because of the
unpopularity of the main party candidates. Yet in the past two days,
Stein’s recount campaign has raised more money than she did in the
entirety of the presidential campaign. As of 19 October, Stein had
raised $3.5m for her presidential race, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics.
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